How to Increase Social Media Engagement

If you have no social media engagement strategy at all, then it’s important to develop one. Boosting overall social media engagement is no easy feat. If it were, every brand would be successful, and there wouldn’t be any competition.

A few tactics to help you develop a solid social media engagement strategy include:

• Post Regularly – This can be a slippery slope. You want to post high-quality content on a regular basis, but you don’t want to post too much and overwhelm your followers. Since posting on social media multiple times a day is difficult, automating social media content will help you maintain your presence and save you time and effort while increasing engagement.
• Use Visual Content – One of the most powerful tools you can use to help increase social media engagement is to incorporate visual content. Content that includes images saw an 85% interaction rate on Facebook and a 35% increase in shares.
• Host Contests – People love to win free stuff. Give your followers a chance to win a prize while they boost your social media engagement along the way. Contests call for allowing your audience an opportunity to express themselves while also boosting your engagement and potentially your reach.
• Go Live – Live videos on Facebook and Instagram are very popular at the moment. Followers are more likely to engage on a live stream because it’s a more personal and immediate experience.
• Ask for Feedback – People enjoy talking and sharing their opinions online. Engage your followers by asking them questions. You can conduct polls and surveys to generate this information. Not only does this method attract the audience, but your team uses community management with low effort when framing campaign success.
• Feature Community Members – A great way to make folks feel special is by highlighting or featuring them. A monthly or biweekly featured community member can go a long way in boosting your social media engagement.

In order to develop the best social media engagement strategies for your brand, you need to truly understand your audience. Perform research beyond basic demographics. Dive in deep and gain a well-rounded, comprehensive understanding of who you are posting for. This is how to measure social media success, find the best way to boost your social media engagement, and keep your followers interacting with your company’s posts.

If you’re looking for ideas for how to improve social media engagement to enhance your strategy, start with brainstorming social media trends. How to increase social media engagement begins with knowing what is trending and which trends will be worth the investment for your brand. We pulled a list of three key trends that are shaping the industry and may even change the way you do your job:

1. Social Commerce: Shoppers will expect to be able to buy products directly from your social media page(s). Recently, it had been an opportunity for business innovation. However, based on the rate of social media consumption, social commerce is well on its way to competing with eCommerce figures since a large portion of consumers discover new brands and research products via social media. Experiment with shoppable posts with your products as you design a retail experience.
2. Short-Form Video: Vidyard reported 60% of all videos published online in 2020 were as long as two minutes. Almost 30% of which were under one minute. These stats put into perspective that short-form video format will be one of the best ways to sell products or services if the content is entertaining and engaging. Experiment with the Instagram Reels, Twitter Fleets, or YouTube Shorts to re-engage your existing audience on the various platforms. Also, this content can be batched to use on TikTok if you’re looking to expand your online presence with the platform being named the most important social network for marketing.
3. Influencer Marketing: Outsourcing your content can show how to increase social media engagement by expanding your network with the creator economy. Whatever your niche, there are influential creators who are likely looking for products or services like yours to try. Experiment with trying a partnership campaign with a creator, but first define your target audience with the campaign and browse for creators who can connect with that audience.

Following these social trends can be a way to increase social media engagement for your brand visibility. Even if you are an agency working on behalf of a client, these are services you can offer that can change the face of their brand.

How to improve social media engagement will depend upon how you prioritize content ideas, scheduling, tools, and reporting.

Don’t forget how essential social listening and chatbots can be in your social media toolkit. Social listening can show you which keywords, hashtags, or topics your audience is looking for. Chatbots can be more personal with automated replies always ready to aid consumers or escalate their issues making for an exceptional customer experience.

Other collaboration tools like SharpSpring Social are great for eliminating day-to-day tasks by achieving consistent scheduling and using digital marketing KPIs as navigators for continued strategy enhancements.

Social media tools are meant to free up your time, so you spend more time engaging with your audience and strategizing pivots to keep up with your growing business and industry changes. Take time with your analytical reports to compare the success of your current campaign to where you want your goals to take you.

SharpSpring is a full marketing automation company that can provide your business with the tools it needs to improve its social media engagement strategies. For more information or to request a demo, visit our website today.

What are good examples of social media engagement?

Good examples of social media engagement are using audience-generated content, polls, partnering with another brand on a campaign, and speaking on a cause or current event. Interacting with your audience takes being consistent and connecting with them at any opportunity to build continued brand awareness.

Why is engagement important on social media?

Engaging on social media will allow you to focus on providing value without so much energy extended to sales efforts. Showing you care about your audience and what they feel helps you get your message to them directly and build rapport with them.

What makes social media engaging?

Replying to comments, staying on top of interactions, and transforming followers into fans is what makes social media engaging. You can make an authentic effort to build a relationship with your audience while being consistent in your efforts.